April 7th is just 2 weeks away and we’re getting ready to welcome you. This date is the first Saturday in April and, as usual, we will be shearing from 8am-2pm. Help with the animals or just come to enjoy the farm.

We have baby goats with more on the way. There will also be baby chicks to see.

Breakfast and lunch foods will be for sale by Eat More Kettle Corn. Kim will be back with her fabulous baked goods. Jim and Chrissy will have local honey and be doing beekeeping demonstrations. Laura’s Garden has pickled veggies, herbed vinegars and different mustards. Debbie will be bringing handmade soaps and some essential oils. A face painter will be available for children of all ages.

We will shear rain or shine (but hope for good weather). Our farm store will have alpaca products and our pasture raised pork for sale so bring a cooler!

Hopefully you like the new layout. InMotion Hosting has been great to work with to redesign the website. All of the bugs are not worked out yet but I’ll keep moving forward to correct mistakes.

Mother Nature is giving us the major cold shoulder and the driveway is covered in ice in several places. We won’t be open again until Thursday January 11th. Hopefully by then the temperature will have gotten above freezing at some point to clear the ice. (Even with salt, there are places that will not clear!)

Thank you for your support over the years and we look forward to seeing you in 2018. Happy New Year to all.

June is baby alpaca time here at the farm and we have 5 so far. There’s another one due any day now also. It’s always fun to watch the herd take care of the crias and see the crias running around and playing together.

We’ll be away until after the 4th of July for our annual fishing trip to Canada but look forward to your visit in July.

At long last, this trip is finally here!! We’ve been working hard to get the farm ready for us to leave. We’re very grateful to Andrea Perno for farm sitting for us again so we can visit Hannah in Scotland. With Icelandic Air, you can stopover in Iceland for up to 7 days when flying to Europe (and maybe other locations?). When Paul set up this vacation, he included 2 days in Iceland.

This photo is the outside of the bed and breakfast that we’re staying in while here in Rejkavik. We landed early this morning, came to the B&B, took a nap then went on a walking tour of Rejkavik that included stopping at different restaurants to try typical Icelandic foods. Lamb soup, seafood soup, cheeses & smoked meats, and rye bread ice cream were just a few of the delicious treats that we enjoyed. This is a beautiful, rugged island and we’re excited to see more tomorrow.

The driveway is clear–Paul had a great time playing with his new snow plow–and the goats have have all had their kids. The babies are showing off their cuteness and jumping skills on an hourly basis and they would love to entertain you.

Please mark your calendar for shearing day April 15, 2017 from 8-2. We are really hoping that the weather cooperates this year.

The weatherman got it right this time. We spent most of Monday getting ready for the storm–extra feed, lots of straw everywhere, hay in all of the shelters and one of the large bales moved into the barn. All of the water heaters and both generators were tested and a gasoline run to fill all of the cans was made.

Tuesday, we woke up to a winter wonderland and it continued to snow until mid afternoon. Paul had a great time plowing–something about boys and their toys! We both got our exercise yesterday stomping through the snow to make paths for the animals–especially for the pigs. Their shorter legs put them at a bit of a disadvantage but all have done well.

The goat kids snuggled up with their moms deep in the straw and didn’t see the big deal we were making! I’m glad that Gina held off–she’s the last doe to kid yet this spring.

We’re grateful that the electricity stayed on for us and praying that those that lost electricity soon have it restored.

Hoping that Mother Nature has gotten this out of her system and that we’ll have a perfect day on April 15th for our shearing. Hope to see you then.

Thanks to all of you that have been with me for the last 6 weeks. We made it!!! The X-ray looked good, pins are out and I have graduated from a rolling half walker to crutches partial weight bearing. My doctor said, if I behave, I should be back in regular shoes in a couple of weeks. Happy dance when that happens!!

Found another unfinished project for today in one of my favorite yarns. It’s Weathered Cedar–one of our farm yarns–that was then dyed with green and purple. This was going to be a scarf but I stalled our halfway so it’s now an infinity scarf. A weird thing about the pattern (sorry, it’s been so long that I cannot find it to give the designer credit) is that it’s stockinette stitch based without a border to keep it from curling. This is mainly why I quit knitting in the middle.

To stop the curling, I found a celebratory skein of purple yarn. (Doesn’t everyone celebrate with purple? What’s your celebratory color?) On both sides of the infinity scarf, I first did slip stitches then 2 rows of single crochet. Problem solved and it looks great.

Although this challenge is over, I will be blogging more regularly. My goal is at least once per month so I would like to hear from you in the future.

Thanks again for your support. We hope to see you at the farm sometime.

Should have looked at this AFTER the pins came out. Can’t believe how long they are!!!